Awesome stuff. I little nugget on how long they've had their repsponsibilities might help some out. Like for example, Cerrato has only been in charge of football matters this one past season. Before that he held a job mostly similar to Campbell's. And was chief yes man according to a certain amount of fans who know better than all of us.

yeah, that's probably something I can edit into the original post when I have time

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3. Who does the "quality control" on the regional scouts? Do they pick the games they should see or does someone direct them to see specific games?

The reason I ask #2 and #3 is that I did some basketball scouting for an NBA team MANY years ago and watching a game live is very different from watching the same game on tape. You can assess skills better on tape because you can re-run and break down plays, but if you want to know if the guy is a "real player" you get that much better in person than on tape.

1. Yes, it's his son

2. At this point, he's really more of a "second opinion" kind of guy. I don't think he does as much traveling

3. It's really up to the scout to know the schools and the players and go to the games from August through November. This is for the college scouts. They will generally go a school and watch film with the coaches and then watch the player actually practice. Pro scouts tend to do more film research than "live" research, as I understand it. At the end of the year, the pro scouts will present their findings to Cerrato and the position coaches present their review of their own players. And then Cerrato, Campbell, Brown, Zorn and I'm not sure who else will sit down and discuss and rank each player and determine if there are free agents they want to target or players on their own team they do or do not want to re-sign. Also, forgot to mention, before the meeting VC (or actually I think Campbell runs this now) will present the scouts' recommendations to the position coaches so they can review film of the players and see how they might fit in. Anyhow, once this list is finalized then it's given to Snyder.

College coaches face three big challenges 1.) the amount of days they are allowed to visit schools and players is restricted because of NCAA rules. 2.) More and more Juniors are entering the draft but they can't be scouted until they declare and 3) The scouts set their schedules based on what players they know will fit best in the head coach's system. But with us changing systems so often it's a crap shoot. You spend all fall scouting for the Fun and Gun and then suddenly Marty is hired. You focus on the Gibbs' offense and next thing you know we're going West Coast Offense

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Let me just expand on the scouting process for a second. It's not up to Cerrato or Campbell or Brown to review and grade players and hand it over to Zorn or Snyder. That's not how it works.

So let's look at how Devin Thomas, for example, becomes a Redskin. We'll do it in timeline fashion (the timeline is a rough approximation, something could happen one year in late January and another year in early February depending on the NFL season)

August 2007: Shemmy Shembechler, as college scout of the midwest, will prepare his schedule of schools to watch which will include Michigan State, for the college football season. Since we're talking about Devin Thomas here, let's just focus on wide receivers. As Shembechler evaluates each wide receiver he's looking for players that fit into Coach Gibbs'system. As head coach and team president, Gibbs will have final say over the roster. Shembechler will attend games, school practices, and watch film with the position coach, coordinator and head coach of each player he's targeting. He'll also try to do some digging on intangibles, for example he'll talk to professors about his character and demeanor in the classroom, his study habits, etc.

September 2007: Pro Scout Don Warren begins a weekly process of reviewing every NFL game for the teams he has been assigned to and begins compiling reports on every player, with a particular focus toward impending free agents and potential trade options. Warren will follow the same pattern as Shembechler, but with pro players

September 2007: In addition to his coaching responsibilities, Stan Hixon is compiling weekly notes on the current players he's coaching

January 2008: Cerrato and Louis Riddick sit down with Don Warren and the other pro scouts and review the scout's analyses of all the players in the NFL, CFL, Arena Football, etc. that they have graded high enough (I don't know what the scale is) and believe would be an improvement over the current roster. t

January/February 2008: Stan Hixon, as WR coach, is given the list of players along with game films prepared by the pro scouts and does his own review and ranks the players (So we're mainly talking about guys like Jerry Porter, DJ Hackett, Bryant Johnson, etc) under consideration as determined by Cerrato, Riddick, and the pro scouts.

February 2008: Cerrato, Riddick, Gibbs and the offensive staff will basically lock themselves up in a room for several days. They go through each player (usually 5-10 players). Let's suppose one of Don warren's responsibilities is AFC West teams. Warren, as the pro scout, representing (for lack of a better word) Jerry Porter will present his report of Porter to the group. Then Hixon will present his review. Then the group wil watch game tape. Then there will be a discussion across the room and a final ranking will be determined. Let's say it's a scale of 1-10 (1 being the highest) and Porter has been given a 4. Next they'll move on to the next player, let's say it's Bryant Johnson, and repeat the same process and they'll rank him compared to Porter. So let's say he gets a 3, now he's ranked above Porter. Remember, everyone is trying to find the best players to match what Gibbs wants based on the select few players chosen by Cerrato, Riddick and the scouts from a much larger list compiled by the scouts. After all the potential WRs on other teams and in other leagues are evaluated, the current Redskins WRs are layered into the equation.

This process repeats for every position and for college as well with Scott Campbell and college scouts sitting in on the meetings in place of Riddick and the national scouts (though sometimes I think all are in meetings together)

February 2008: Cerrato prepares the final report based on the meetings and presents it to Gibbs and Snyder for final approval. Snyder's role at this point is to approve spending the expected dollar amount, or be willing to exceed if deemed necessary, to land the free agents targeted by his staff. Eric Schaffer plays a prominent role here in determining the budget and preparing for negotiations. But if there's any place where Snyder is "meddlesome" it's with the contracts portion of the personnel, not with the actual evaluation of talent.

March 2008: Ok, let's jump ahead here (because I have actual work to do) and move on to mid-March where the bulk of free agency is pretty much done and the focus is now almost exclusively on the draft. As the Redskins start preparing for the draft, Gibbs, Snyder, Campbell, and Riddick (If I recall correctly, it's just them at this point) will start grading across the board. So they'll try to determine if a WR rated a 3 is better or more necessary than a RB rated a 3, for example. And their big board is created for draft day.

In the weeks leading up to draft day, Snyder, Gibbs, and Cerrato will meet regularly with each other and ultimately with the top players targeted in the draft.

Draft Day 2008: As the draft proceeds, each position coach ranks the best available players at his position versus current Redskins. Gibbs and Cerrato will take those rankings as the day proceeds and measure across the board as noted above.

So clearly there a lot of problems with the process above. Here's 5 right off the bat

1. Thomas wasn't a senior and didn't declare until January so by rule the most Shembechler can do is watch Thomas in games during the 2007 regular season. He can't attend practice, watch game films, talked to coaches or professors until Thomas officially declares so the scouting of Thomas is a mad scramble.

2. All the scouts are spending the entire fall finding the best players for Gibbs, but come January he's suddenly gone and we don't know who's replacing him. Not only that but Williams and Saunders are gone too. Side note, a coordinator's opinion, if strong enough, will weigh more heavily in the rating process. His vote may count as two.

3. Not only is Gibbs gone but before you know it, Director of Pro Personnel Louis Riddick is gone as is pro scout Terry Ray and on the college side scout Mike Faulkiner has passed away. And now we've decided to use the WCO. So you're going into free agency and the draft with a new offensive system, a new head coach, and two key scouts and all the leg work they did over the season to prepare for the off-season.

4. Coaches are given films to watch and review the player, but they rarely are asked to review the person. Which is odd considering the high emphasis on character. That judgment is reserved for the executives, again based primarily on the findings of the scouts.

5. You've got guys like Don Warren who really probably did nothing to earn his position as a scout other than being a player 15 years ago. I mean I like the guy but what are his credentials?

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Something around the rumor mill has Dan Reeves going to the cowboys in a Bill Parcells type roll. This may be the first of the "Wild S---" that was predicted for dallas this offseason.

Not sure why you posted that in this thread, but yeah Reeves has been known to be trying to get back in the league for a couple of years now. Actually, surprised his name was never publicly rumored here. I like Reeves, let's see if JJ listens to him though

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Not sure why you posted that in this thread, but yeah Reeves has been known to be trying to get back in the league for a couple of years now. Actually, surprised his name was never publicly rumored here. I like Reeves, let's see if JJ listens to him though

Ah..and there's the rub. JJ listens to the voices inside his head and that's about it.

Not sure why you posted that in this thread, but yeah Reeves has been known to be trying to get back in the league for a couple of years now. Actually, surprised his name was never publicly rumored here. I like Reeves, let's see if JJ listens to him though

It wasn't big or reliable enough to be in a new thread. I thought the front office topic was close enough so I put it here.

What's funny about this is that talent-wise the cowboys don't really have a problem. I don't know what Reeves could do to help there except be super-coach over Phillips. If Jones neuters him than he won't do well in the personel department.